Social media’s age of innocence is long over – back in 2005, when Myspace was the social network of choice and Facebook was barely a year old, social media was like an exciting playground, with parents keen to try it out and not nursing any suspicions that social media could be bad for their children.
Fast-forward to almost two decades later and, if social media were a real-life playground, no parent would allow their children to play there on their own.
Despite most social platforms requiring their users to be of a certain age, children nowadays are very tech-savvy and find ways and means to bypass such rules and surf social media on their own. The dangers here are many – especially considering that children nowadays spend hours in front of a screen.
One of the main threats are child predators – with strangers manipulating young children and grooming them with the aim of exploiting them. Content is also a danger – with social media being rife with misinformation, scams, inappropriate and dangerous content. And despite controls in place, violence, sex, drugs and racism all manage to make their way to social media feeds. And so do cyberbullying and harassment – cyberbullies use their influence to bully their peers, send cruel messages and post damaging material. The results are terrifying.
To better understand the extent to which children are using social media and expose the risks of doing so – while helping parents tackle this reality – ExpressVPN has conducted a survey in the US and UK. In ExpressVPN’s survey, over 2,000 children aged four to 13 in the US and the UK who have access to the internet, as well as over 2,000 parents and guardians, were surveyed.
The results show that children are spending a lot of time on social media – sometimes without their parents knowing. While only 25% of parents surveyed said they allow their four- to 13-year-olds to have a social media account, over 50% of the children surveyed said they use social media. The assumption here is that many children who use social media do so without their parents’ knowledge and supervision.
These children spend an average of 28 minutes daily on social platforms. The older children get, the more time they spend on social media. Four-year-olds clocked an average of 21 minutes on social media every day – while 13-year-olds averaged 45 minutes daily.
When it comes to the biggest threats children face online, 59% of the parents that participated in ExpressVPN’s survey said they were most worried about their child being bullied. Other concerns followed – including concerns that children are groomed by an online predator, fears that children might be exposed to offensive content, and risks posed by harassment by other users.
When it comes to children, those surveyed said their greatest disturbance was encountering someone rude online (34%), followed by watching scary videos. Of the children surveyed, 22% said they were bullied online, while 17% said that a stranger had asked them which school they attended. Disturbingly, 14% of children respondents said that a stranger had asked them for their home address.
Such findings show the importance that parents and guardians should give to their children’s safety online. In fact, the survey findings also showed that 76% of parents think they are the ones most responsible for teaching young children how to stay away from social media. Child respondents agreed – with 84% saying that their parents and guardians had taught them about internet safety.